


What's Yours Done This Week?

by Kryptaria



Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Iron Man (Movies), James Bond (Craig movies), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Multiple Crossovers, Support Group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5783146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every superhero has a sidekick. A best friend. A lover. An innocent bystander who gets caught up in the chaos. Maybe they become superheroes themselves. Maybe they just learn to deal with their superhero's crap.</p><p>Whatever the case, there's one thing they need: people who understand what they're going through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Yours Done This Week?

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is all Neverwhere's fault. I should be writing stuff for, y'know, PAY, but then this happened. At least Neverwhere betaed. Thanks, darlin. And enjoy, dear readers!
> 
> ~~~~~

Somewhere along the line, Josie’s bar had acquired secure high speed internet. Not that Josie knew about it. Not that _anyone_ knew about it, which was exactly how it was supposed to be. Exactly how Bucky had arranged it, with the help of a techie friend he’d met overseas. Some things were private.

Or, they were supposed to be private, anyway.

Six days out of the week, the back room was the site of a not-so-secret high-stakes poker game, or what passed for high-stakes in the rathole that was Hell’s Kitchen. But Josie, in a fit of pretending to be an upstanding member of the community, had forbidden gambling on Sundays — or gambling with stakes over twenty bucks, anyway — which made the back room perfect for... _other_ purposes.

Two knocks, three knocks, two knocks. The obvious “passcode” made Bucky roll his eyes, but his co-conspirators lacked the imagination (and paranoia) of his former handlers. The current lack of security-consciousness was actually comforting.

He opened the door and started to smile, because Foggy was just like that, able to pull a smile from anyone, no matter how hard the shit had hit the fan in the last six days. But the smile vanished when he spotted a woman lurking behind Foggy. Medium-brown skin, dark hair, almost-as-dark circles under tired eyes that held a familiar hint of desperation.

Bucky’s first instinct was to slam the door in their faces. This was a _private_ endeavor. It had taken him weeks of surveillance and cyberstalking and the occasional chance encounter at a coffee shop for him to open up to Foggy and even longer to propose this little project of theirs. He wasn’t ready for another new person to join them. The last one had joined just three months ago. _Too soon._

But that desperation was all too familiar, something he saw in the mirror damn near every morning. He opened the door and said, “C’mon in. Looks like you need it. Both of you.”

“You have _no idea_ , pal,” Foggy said, heartfelt, heading right for the questionably unlabeled bottle that Josie provided for these meetings, free of charge. Bucky suspected it was an experiment in home-distilling or possibly leftover degreaser from the rare times when she wiped down the bar, but Foggy loved the stuff. Bucky preferred to stick with good whiskey, which wasn’t available here — Josie bought her “top shelf” from the discount section at the liquor store — so he usually smuggled a bottle in under his jacket.

The woman made it one step in before her brows shot up at the sight of the bottle on the table. “I’m... Is there something _swimming_ in that?”

Foggy beamed at her. “It’s an eel.”

“Right. Tequila it is,” she said, pointing back over her shoulder. “Be right back.” She turned on her heel and stalked to the bar with the type of determined stride that threatened death and dismemberment to anyone who got in her way. Bucky was all too familiar with that feeling.

He gave the door a push to close it behind her, then turned to Foggy. “Who’s —”

“Don’t be pissed,” Foggy interrupted over the gurgle of him pouring a generous shot. “That’s Claire, and she needs us. Desperately. She’s a nurse.”

Bucky ran through his memory of every conversation he’d had with Foggy, who got _very_ chatty when drunk. “Nurse McHottie?”

Foggy cringed in his seat and whispered, “Don’t call her that _to her face!_ Dude, manners!”

Bucky stared at Foggy.

“Yeah. Nurse McHottie,” Foggy admitted with a shrug before downing his shot. His whole face scrunched up at the taste, and his cough sounded more like he was gagging, but that didn’t stop him from pouring another.

The next knock on the door was perfectly normal, accompanied by a quiet, “Guys?” Nurse McHottie’s voice. No, _Claire’s_ voice, Bucky firmly reminded himself. He was _not_ going to call a total stranger McHottie, no matter how admittedly hot she was. He might’ve spent the last seventy-odd years as a brainwashed assassin, but he had manners.

He opened the door and beckoned her inside, this time with tequila and what passed for a clean glass around here. “Hi,” he said politely. “Have a seat.”

“So, uh...” Claire looked Bucky up and down, not checking him out but in a searching sort of way. What was she looking for? Weapons? His metal arm? Bloodstains? “Foggy said this was a support group for, uh... How’d you put it?”

“People who deal with crazy suicidal idiots with no sense of self-preservation,” Foggy declared. “That’s Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. —”

Bucky hid a flinch and tried to interrupt. “Foggy —”

“— the Winter Soldier. He’s been in love with Captain America since, like, _forever,_  and, well, you’ve seen the YouTubes of the crazy shit _he_ does,” Foggy went on.

Reluctantly, Bucky glanced Claire’s way. Sure enough, she was eyeing him like he was a live rattlesnake or something. “The whole ‘Winter Soldier’ thing —”

“Oh. Shit,” Foggy cut in. “That’s not his fault. Ignore that. He’s back to being Bucky. Sergeant Barnes, if you want to get technical.”

“Uh-huh,” Claire said, looking a little dazed, not that Bucky blamed her. Between the whole “trapped in a back room with an assassin” thing and Foggy’s stress-babbling, she had to be overwhelmed. “So, Captain America’s... gay?

 _That_ was her takeaway from Foggy’s rushed speech? Bucky wasn’t going to argue. “Bi,” he corrected. “Or pan. Whatever.” He judged it safe enough to extend a hand and offer up that charming smile that always got him dates back before the war. “Nice to meet you.”

Claire’s smile seemed genuine, and she didn’t hesitate to shake his hand. “Nice to — _Oh, my God._ ” Her eyes went wide, and her hand clenched around Bucky’s. “Are those Cap videos _real?_ Jumping out a twentieth-floor window without a parachute?”

This time, Bucky didn’t bother to hide his flinch. He sank down into the chair next to her and used his metal hand to pick up the whiskey. “Twenty-fourth.”

Claire let go of his hand so she could pat his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Mine just get stabbed, shot, poisoned, and burned most of the time.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got _three_ of them,” Foggy said.

Bucky blinked. _Three?_ She was in a... what, foursome?

“Two and a half,” Claire said, smirking a bit grimly at Foggy. “We share custody of _yours_ , remember?”

“True.” Foggy beamed at Claire.

And that made it a _fivesome_. What the hell? Before Bucky could ask, there was another two-three-two knock on the door. He leaned his chair back on two legs so he could open it. “Hey.”

Bucky, Foggy, and Claire had all dressed to blend in with the environment — T-shirts, ratty jeans, slightly less ratty coats. The woman who walked in made no effort, in her heels, designer suit, and cashmere overcoat. Her strawberry blond hair had probably started the day in a neat ponytail, but strands had come free to frame her face, and she hadn’t touched up her lipstick for hours.

“I’m not late, am I?” she asked, opening her handbag as she went to her usual spot, giving them each a smile.

“Two minutes early,” Bucky said. “Pepper Potts, this is Claire... Uh...”

“Temple,” Claire filled in, half-standing to offer Pepper a hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Potts.”

“Pepper, please.” She smiled, shook hands, then took a clean glass out of her purse. Like Bucky, she’d learned early to come prepared. She slid the glass to Bucky — she was another whiskey drinker, these days — and busied herself tapping on a tablet that wasn’t yet commercially available from Stark Industries’ Tech Division.

That fivesome was still distracting Bucky from the business at hand. “Who are your other two?” he couldn’t help but ask Claire, who was eyeing Pepper with something like awe.

Blinking, Claire turned back to him and said, “An alcoholic private investigator with zero sense of self-preservation and the most severe case of PTSD I’ve ever seen, and a bartender with skin that can’t be cut or stabbed, which does _not_ prevent severe internal injuries, despite what he thinks.” She rolled her eyes.

“Ouch.” Bucky gave her another smile and said, “We’re here every Sunday.”

Claire raised her shot of tequila in salute, then downed it.

“All set,” Pepper said, sliding the tablet to the far side of the table, screen-side down. A flicker of blue light appeared in the air over the tablet before it spread into a broad square with a hologram of _CONNECTING_ blinking in the middle.

Bucky turned his chair and leaned back with a sigh, relieved to get the meeting going. Once he’d snapped HYDRA’s conditioning, he’d figured that he’d need therapy, but he’d never expected to need _this_.

Maybe he should suggest upping the sessions to twice a week.

 

~~~

 

There were advantages to breaking away from the formality of the British Secret Intelligence Service HQ, not the least of which was Q’s ability to control his environment completely — which included absolutely unbreakable security measures meant not to prevent foreign espionage but to keep his bloody boyfriends out of his private business.

Once the lab beneath the Thames was locked down, the only people who could obtain entry were those whose biometrics were on file, who possessed not only a password but a rotating token, and who knew where to find the entrance in the first place. At the moment, that was a grand total of one person, other than Q himself.

Well, two humans and Q’s cats, Sudo and Grep. RFID chips and a paw-recognition welcome mat took care of them, letting them come and go as they pleased. He just needed to figure out how to stop them from bringing him presents. Some of those bloody rats were bigger than they were.

So Q was relaxed, humming blithely along with _Anarchy in the UK_ , and barely heard the automatic door slide open. “Evening, Watson!” he shouted without telling the AI to cut the volume. The videoconference holo was still blank, and John knew full well that the Sex Pistols required maximum volume to be properly appreciated.

John’s answer was lost under the screaming guitar, but it sounded like a bog-standard greeting, so Q thought nothing more of it until he saw John wasn’t alone. With a startled yelp, Q pulled his feet off his desk and rose so quickly, his chair rolled back into the soldering station. John had brought some bloody girl — a _hipster_ girl — right into the heart of Q’s domain.

“White Queen, volume zero!” Q shouted, and the AI — the one that MI6 _didn’t_ know about, thanks to their paranoia over Skynet and the like — obediently cut off the song in mid-beat.

“Dude. Chill,” the hipster said, unwinding the bulky scarf from around her throat. “Nice place. Very Frankenstein’s lab.”

“Far less biohazardous, I assure you,” Q answered automatically. She wasn’t just a hipster. She was an _American_ hipster.

John gave an apologetic smile as he shrugged out of his coat. “Q, meet Darcy Lewis, assistant to Thor’s girlfriend, Jane —”

Q’s irritation disappeared in a flash. He seized Darcy’s hand, saying, “Jane Foster! The astrophysicist! Her paper on quantum knots in —”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Darcy cut in, ducking her head to give him a scolding look over her chunky glasses. “I’m in PoliSci. Or I was, until Jane got her science all over me. I just stick around for the interdimensional hotties.”

Q’s brain ground to a halt. “The...”

“Thor,” John said with a deep sigh. “Please, God, don’t get her started on —”

“The booty of a _god_ ,” Darcy declared. “A god’s booty! Deifically bootylicious.”

“I...” Q looked to John for an explanation or rescue.

John, who was truly too wonderful to be saddled with Sherlock Holmes, reached for the coat he’d draped over a chair and took a flask out of the pocket. “Sherlock had to consult with Dr. Foster on a case this past week, which is where we met Ms. Lewis.”

“Darcy,” she corrected, intercepting the flask despite Q’s desperate need for the contents. She unscrewed the top and added, “It was less ‘consulting’ and more ‘pistols at dawn over the scientific method.’”

Q couldn’t help but ask, “Who won?”

Darcy downed a healthy swallow, then finally offered Q the flask. “Jane, but Thor taught her to cheat. Protip: When the god of lightning offers to tweak your taser, say yes.”

“I’m tempted to ask for one myself,” John said wryly.

That made Q smile almost as much as the scotch did. “So Darcy, you’re here because...”

“Dude. _Dude_ ,” Darcy repeated unhelpfully. “My best friend-slash-boss is boinking an alien god who’s angsting about his hot brother being probably-dead-but-we-all-know-better and how he got kicked out of his throne and just... _dude_.”

Q followed along as best he could, with his limited knowledge of “the Thor incident.” Really, he knew more about the Chitauri Invasion, thanks to specializing in international incidents. Home soil matters were strictly an MI5 affair, despite how desperately James and Alec wanted to stick their noses into domestic matters.

“Well, then. Please, join us,” Q said, figuring he might as well be polite, since the decision was no longer his anyway. He took a sip of what proved to be _very_ good scotch, presumably stolen from Mycroft, then returned the flask to John and asked, “What were you and Sherlock working on, then?”

John grimaced. “Let’s just say Sherlock never needed to know aliens _actually_ exist. It was like a bloody episode of the X-files.”

Q snickered. “Were you Mulder or Scully?”

“Skinner, thanks very much,” John said dryly. “You know. Trying to minimise collateral damage and keep the authorities from wondering what the buggering fuck my agent’s done this time.”

Q sighed, understanding. “Hear, hear,” he said, just as the holodisplay came online.

 

~~~

 

Instead of the expected two faces in the holodisplay, there were three. Bucky shot a glance at Claire, wondering if someone had declared this to be Visitors’ Week without telling him. He shook his head, trusting Q to be discreet, and said, “Hey, guys. We’ve got me, Pepper, Foggy, and a new member, Claire.”

“Hello,” Q said, shooting a glance at _his_ newcomer.

“Welcome, Claire,” John said with the same understanding, long-suffering smile they all tended to share.

“Yo. _Hey!_ ” the not-foreign-after-all newcomer said. She leaned forward, blinking through her glasses, and grinned like Tony Stark at his most manic. “You’re Bucky! Dude! Is Cap _awesome_ in bed or what?”

 _“Darcy!”_ Pepper said, though it came out with a hint of a squeak in her voice.

The American, Darcy, blinked once, then gave Pepper an innocent smile. “Hey, Ms. Potts! How’s it going?”

Pepper’s smile lasted all of a second and a half before it melted into a sigh. “Tony blew up the California house. _Again_.”

John winced. “Sherlock found out aliens are real,” he said. “Only two years after the rest of the world did.”

“Matt blocked a punch with his face, cracked his cheekbone, and let himself get captured so he could ‘interrogate’ a gang of tech smugglers,” Foggy said.

“Dear God, he’s learning from my two,” Q said, shaking his head. “They think getting themselves captured is a valid strategy for infiltration _all the time._ ”

“What did yours do?” John asked, looking at Bucky.

He managed a sickly smile. “He got caught in Tony’s explosion. Turns out super soldier serum can’t regrow scorched eyebrows.” The groups on both side of the Atlantic snickered, which made Bucky grin. Just saying it was a huge weight off his chest — a reminder that he wasn’t alone. “Darcy, meet Claire, Foggy, and you know Pepper,” he said, pointing to each in turn. “Claire, that’s Darcy, John, and Q-yes-that’s-really-his-name. You gals don’t have to share, if you don’t want to.”

“But believe me,” John said, using the flask in his hand to gesture around. “There’s nothing we haven’t heard.”

“And with that,” Foggy said in that serious drunk-lawyer tone of his, “let the meeting of The Society of Friends of —”

Two knocks interrupted him, and all eyes turned to look at the door. Three knocks. Then two.

“Are we expecting anyone else?” Bucky asked, standing. He couldn’t keep from pulling his jacket back, exposing the pistol holstered against his ribs.

“Uh, don’t think so,” Foggy said, going a bit wide-eyed at the sight of the gun.

One hand resting on the butt of the pistol, Bucky unlatched the door and opened it, fully expecting whatever supervillain-of-the-week had found its way to New York.

Instead, a _kid_ stood there. Well, not quite a kid, but the guy was maybe twenty at the most, and there was something distinctly kid-like about him. A twenty-something kid in dire need of a haircut, with a familiar look of desperation in his eyes.

“Uh.” The kid swallowed, ducking his head to look around Bucky at the others. “Is this... Is this the support group for, uh...”

Baffled, Bucky stepped back and nodded. “Yeah. Who are you?”

The kid slunk inside, goggled at the holodisplay for a beat, and then said, “Spi— uh, Peter. There’s this, uh, guy, Wa— Uh, he goes by Deadpool.”

“The _mercenary?_ ” Bucky asked, stunned. There were very few names he remembered from his HYDRA days, but Deadpool was at the top of the list. Unkillable. Unstoppable. Utterly insane.

Peter nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah. He kinda likes me. _A lot_.”

“Are you... okay with that?” Pepper asked.

“Hey,” Darcy interrupted. “If not, I’ll take him.”

Everyone on the American side of the discussion turned to stare at the holodisplay.

Darcy shrugged. “Have you seen that ass? Talk about perfect costuming.”

Peter, whose face had gone bright red, stared down at the floor. Apparently yes, he _had_ seen that ass and shared Darcy’s opinion.

With a sympathetic tone, Pepper said, “It’s okay, honey. Come sit down. Tell us all about it.”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” Bucky said, giving Peter a careful push towards the table. “Believe me, we understand.”

“We certainly do,” Q said, sighing deeply.

Foggy nodded, refilling his glass again. He was already a third of the way down to the eel. “You have no idea how much we understand.”


End file.
